I have had a battle royal going with my relatively new neighbor who moved to the U.S. from Russia. He has not trimmed his tree limbs for almost 3 years and they were beginning to kill my grass. Untrimmed trees are also a big problem when we have a hurricane. Tried to explain this to him and that his particular kind of tree was really designed to grow up and not out. Even gave him the name and phone number of my tree trimmer. Having no success I trimmed the lower branches myself. He came over to talk to me about it one day when I was walking out the door to go get some range time with some friends and had my gun in my hand. He thanked me and turned around and walked away.
No doubt the code enforcement officer’s salary is paid for by fines.
i have awakened in a parallel universe where the idiots reign....
tree police.....really???
we need email addresses and fax numbers....
Why, under their all-knowing and "progressive" approach to the people/government relationship, we are almost back to the European arrangement of government over people which existed when our ancestors fled Europe and established liberty for individuals in the New World.
In the early days of America's experiment in liberty, its Founders warned of oppressive taxation by those elected to represent the people. Under their "People's" Constitution, the people were left free, and the government was limited.
While Europe struggled with oppressive government intervention, the genius Founders of America recognized enduring truths about human nature, the human tendency to abuse power, and the possibilities of liberty for individuals. Richard Frothingham's 1872 "History of the Rise of the Republic of the United States," Page 14, contained the following footnote item on the condition of citizens of France:
"Footnote 1. M. de Champagny (Dublin Review, April, 1868) says of France, 'We were and are unable to go from Paris to Neuilly; or dine more than twenty together; or have in our portmanteau three copies of the same tract; or lend a book to a friend: or put a patch of mortar on our own house, if it stands in the street; or kill a partridge; or plant a tree near the road-side; or take coal out of our own land: or teach three or four children to read, . .. without permission from the civil government.'"
Clearly the government of France at that 1868 date laid an oppressive regulatory and tax burden on citizens, robbing them of their Creator-endowed liberty and enjoyment thereof. Frothingham observed that such coercive power constituted "a noble form robbed of its lifegiving spirit."
Thomas Jefferson warned Americans:
"To preserve [the] independence [of the people,] we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:39
Sounds like the leaders of this city have "progressed" all the way back to where France was in 1868 and before.
1. is it even a tree??
2. if you cut the trunk at the ground level, that must be ok, right, I mean not a single branch was cut
3. if the cm died, mysteriously of course, then it would be ok to cut it down, right?
I really, really dislike government sticking it’s nose in things it has no right or business in
Terms:
to “Coppice” a tree = cut it to the ground usually because you want new shoots for some purpose.
to “Pollard” a tree = cut last years growth back, often done to Crepe Myrtle’s to keep the tree from getting too large and to encourage a new growth of branches that will flower.
to commit “Crepe Murder”, the term busybodies have for pollarding Crepe Myrtle trees.
Obviously, the officer writing the fine knows squat about crepe myrtles.
The church pruner is correct.
Members of the church should descend on the next City Council meeting and demand the fine be rescinded and the writer of the fine go to crepe myrtle sensitivity school.
That's exactly why the roads in Charlotte are littered with huge oak limbs after these storms. We've had our neighborhood roads blocked by fallen trees almost weekly this spring. The trees should have been pruned but everyone fears the Tree Nazis.
They probably hired some seasonal college intern into code enforcement, you know the ‘environmental activist’ type. The type that probably grew up in the city and never cut a lawn, let alone trimmed a branch.
Summer’s off during college I worked as an intern to a Town Engineer and in an adjacent office was the building inspectors and code enforcement (one fulltime). Note that townships often add seasonal people to do code enforcement. Usually, the seasonal code enforcement people are sent on a jihad against temporary signage, portable signage, banners…folding lawns signs and such. You know, blight related to productivity and such. Well, one seasonal guy was particularly zealous and rolled into a Village within the town, it’s own jurisdiction within the Township, wrote fines for the length of the Village in a single day. He was unswayed by the protests of the Villager, with all of 16 hours (maybe) of experience he was confident in his authority to get the job done.
To make a long story short, there was a meeting the very next day, after which he didn‘t so much as drive through that Village for the rest of the season.
You’d be suprised the turnabout that results when you list the code enforcement officer’s name: ___________ ?
...just say’in.
Why is there a "free permit" which brings a yard nazi to instruct you on the pluperfect way to trim your tree? Do they get kickbacks for recommending aborists?
They say you cut it wrong so they fine you and demand you kill the tree and replace it?
What'll it cost? $10-$20 plus labor, haul away, etc? Of course, there will have to be permitting and inspections of the remove and replacement too, right? More revenue opportunities!
The solution is obviously more government in the make of progress.